About High School Muscial
About High School Muscial
The runaway success of Disney Channel’s “High School Musical,” the sound track of which has hit the No. 1 spot on the Billboard pop-music charts twice this year on its way to going triple platinum, has renewed interest in the “Dreamgirls”-style teen musical genre — and among the musical productions benefiting is
“In Your Dreams,” a musical written and produced by Miramax-linked screenwriter Zeke Farrow and scored by Lucian Piane.
inyourdreamsthemusical.com/
‘When the $4 million budget ‘High School Musical’ debuted on the Disney Channel on Jan. 20 of this year, it drew nearly eight million viewers, making it the top-rated basic-cable TV show that week,” says Farrow, who also co-wrote the award-winning indie feature “Slo-Mo.” ‘My phone was ringing off the hook and my e-mail box was flooded with queries — is yours next?” says Farrow. ‘I’m hopeful that it is — especially as ‘High School Musical’ is now a $300 million worldwide franchise.”
“Everyone told me I was crazy for writing a high school musical,” Farrow admits. “But it turns out my timing was perfect. And who doesn’t like to tell their agent, ‘I told you so!’”
Like “High School Musical,” which was seen by 32 million viewers ages six to 14 in its first 10 American cable screenings, Farrow and Piane’s “Dreamgirl”-style “In Your Dreams” is a large scale, splashy, teen musical — with a dash of political satire. It centers around Helen, a 17-year-old girl who appears in three different incarnations, Black, Pink, and Blue.
The musical opens with the bizarre introduction of Black Helen, a girl tortured by fellow students Melanie and Jordanna and secretly in love with Jared. We quickly learn that Black Helen is but a dream and as she fades and Pink Helen wakes up, we realize that Pink Helen’s life is a perfect, bubble gum musical. She is popular, she’s dating Jared, she has high hopes for a perfect day. And today is the day to beat all days. It is prom, and Helen is a front runner to win prom queen’until she learns that the “Popular Girls Caucus” has turned against her — and is even stuffing the ballot box to engineer her defeat!
“There’s a little bit of political satire in the musical, to keep the older audience intrigued,” admits Farrow.
According to many, the themes and music of “In Your Dreams” compare favorably those of “Fame,” “Dreamgirls,” “Hairspray,” and even “Welcome Back, Kotter” — but may cleave most closely to the smash Disney hit “High School Musical,” which, since premiering on the Disney Channel in the U.S. earlier this year, has become nothing short of a phenomenon, setting records around the world.
“Not since ‘Fame’ or ‘Grease,’ ‘Dreamgirls’ or ‘Hairspray’ has a musical had such impact,” says Farrow. “Like my own musical, ‘High School Musical’ is rollicking and squeaky-clean, geared for a young and lucrative audience.” “‘Hairspray” will be released as an Adam Shankman-directed film in the summer of 2007, Farrow notes.
Worldwide, Disney’s cable-only “High School Musical” has now been seen by over 40 million people, and it has earned a Guinness World Record for the most successful songs from a song track — despite being produced on a $4 million production budget. With its popular songs and frenzied toe-tapping, “High School Musical” has become the most popular Disney Channel movie ever, says Farrow. “And we anticipate the same bright future for our own teen musical, ‘In Your Dreams.’”
Directed by the man behind “Dirty Dancing,” “High School Musical” took America by storm, landing six Emmy nominations, and is anticipated to do the same in the U.K. Says Farrow: ‘It kept singer James Blunt off the top of the U.S. album charts, outsold ‘Saturday Night Fever,’ and has become the biggest selling television soundtrack since the ’80s hit ‘Miami Vice.’”
What is helping to fuel the “In Your Dreams” express is the fact that “In Your Dreams’” 13 songs have already been professionally recorded on a CD with performances by a number of top Broadway singers, including Drama Desk-nominated Leslie Kritzer, “Legally Blond’s” Laura Bell Bundy, “Les Miserable’s” Jodie Langel, “Little Shop of Horror’s” Kerry Butler, “Thoroughly Modern Millie’s” Gavin Creel, “Hairspray’s” Jackie Hoffman, ‘The Full Monty’s” Sloan Just, and Anika Larsen, Danny Rocket and Anthony Rapp from ‘Rent.” The CD includes songs such as “Better than Dreams,” “When You’re the Queen,” “Put the I in Team,” and “I Was Born to Reign.”
“What the success of the $4 million budget ‘High School Musical’ has demonstrated once and for all is the fact that there is a place for wholesomeness in the teen entertainment industry,” says Farrow. Farrow points to recent comments by Naomi Wolf, whose feminist work, ‘The Beauty Myth,’ launched her to fame, made in a recent essay for the New York Times to the effect that today’s entertainment for teens ‘packages corruption with a cute overlay.”
Says Farrow: “As Wolf wrote: ‘The problem is a value system in which meanness rules, parents check out, conformity is everything and stressed-out adult values are presumed to be meaningful to teenagers.’ But as the success of Gary Marsh and Disney’s “High School Musical'’ demonstrates, there is definitely a huge audience — let’s call it ‘Flyoverland,’ a land between New York and Los Angeles — that is searching for meaningful entertainment with a positive as opposed to a slutty message.”
And that’s not a small market by any means, says Farrow. Between 1990 and 2000, the number of youths between ages 12 and 19 climbed to 32.4 million in the United States, an increase of 4.5 million, according to a survey by Media Mark Research last year using U.S. Census data. The 12-19 year old market currently spends $170 billion a year on entertainment products, including movies. ‘There’s obviously room for a wide range of value systems to succeed in this $170 billion marketplace.
